Quite simply, my job is to teach children. Whether its in a third grade self-contained classroom, or an eighth grade math class, I am expected to teach children. However, it is impossible to force someone to learn.

Ive been told by many wise people, you can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink. This is true for students as well. My goal is to find ways to motivate children so that they WILL drink and ask for a refill.

Theres ample research available on whats worked for others. My goal is to find what works for me and my students.

3Research Question

My main question is How can I best motivate my students to learn?

The key words in the above question are underlined. I have already found ways others motivate their students. That was the first sub question I needed to answer

4Sub Questions

How have others motivated their students to learn?

My research review outlines my findings on this question

What causes students to lose motivation?

What can I do to reinstate the lost motivation?

What can I do to instill motivation with children who have none yet?

5Data Collection Regarding Sub Questions

I will continue my research on the internet, in professional libraries, and with colleagues to collect further data on what has worked or been noted by others.

I will interview my own students and their parents to find out what has happened, whats been tried, and hopefully, find an alternate solution to the problem (assuming they all realize they have a problem).

6Data Collection

Methods Ill use to collect specific data on my target students include

Teacher journal of anecdotal records

What DOES the student seem to like?

Who does the student best relate to?

What are the students strengths and weaknesses (how can I use them to their advantage?)

What strategy am I using? How is it working???

Official student records

Is there a history of low achievement?

Has the child been tested for anything?

Is there anything in the childs academic past that may be a red flag for whats causing the trouble?

Conferencing with student

Generalized methods dont always work with individual students. We need to truly know the student in order to find out how to motivate him/her.

Parental contact and interviews

is parents behavior enabling the childs?

has something happened in the home environment

7The Big Picture 8Data Analysis

I will review my anecdotal records each week

to determine which strategy is the best one to use with this child (like a doctor reviewing symptoms before starting a medication)

to determine if the current strategy is working or if changes need to be made (once the strategy is chosen).

I will keep the parents involved in what Im trying at school so they can continue it at home.

I will try a strategy for a period of at least 6 weeks before trying something new.

9Points to Consider

What is the students locus of control?

Are the physiological needs being met?

What is the probability of success for this task?

Is the student unmotivated to learn everything or just certain topics?

What needs that I can control are NOT being met? (environmental, teaching style)

Where is the student in reference to the levels of reinforcement? Does the child respond to edible rewards? Although the idea is to aim for the highest level, children with poor self-esteem may need to start a little lower on the continuum.

10My Research Review the somewhat abridged editionslide 1

In Herbert Kohls, I Wont Learn From You (1994), he talks about a first-grader he taught while in his second year of first grade. This child had refused to learn to read. He had CHOSEN to not-read. He never got close enough to a book to try. Mr. Kohl had the sense to see through this and eventually was able to figure out what motivated this child to learn to read. The previous teacher only saw the temper tantrums and the apparent cognitive deficiency. In fact, I was able to reach him by acknowledging his choice to not-learn and by tricking him out of it. However, if he had refused assent, there is no way I could have forced him to learn to read. It helped me learn the essential role that will and free choice play in learning, and it taught me the importance of considering peoples stance toward learning in the larger context of the choices they make as they create lives and identities of their own (p.10). This brings about another important point to consider when seeking to motivate students the teacher will need to take a chance on what will or wont work. I feel its better to try and fail than to never try at all. Plus, we need to try to look at behaviors from the childs perspective. What we perceive as a meaningless tantrum may be attention seeking (trying to fulfill that specific need). In this particular instance, Mr. Kohl was able to identify this and redirect the child to a more appropriate way to meet his needs.

11My Research Review the somewhat abridged editionslide 2

In Tom Savages book, Teaching Self-Control Through Management and Discipline ( 1999) he devotes an entire chapter to motivation and discipline. This has so much useful information packed into it its difficult to summarize in the context of this review. A big idea worth mention is Three factors of motivation can be helpful as a teacher seeks to apply motivation theory in the classroom the needs and interests of the individual, the perception of the difficulty of the task, and the probability of success (p.58). Although these are all centered on the students needs, they are controllable to a certain extent by the teacher. An effective teacher will have strategies to understand the needs as well as meet them.

Several strategies are laid out in a document I found at http//honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDEvCom/guidebk/teachtip/motivation (thanks to Google). Incentives (external and internal, with more emphasis on internal) are listed, as well as environmental factors (interesting visual aids capture attention), checking that the children are ready to learn (meeting basic physiological needs like clothing, food, warmth), and organization on the part of the teacher (smooth flowing lessons, apparent mastery of content). All students need individual attainable goals. This is another job for the teacher know your students enough to assess what they can do and what they cant do.

12My Research Review the somewhat abridged editionslide 3

Linda Lumsden made an interesting point in her article, Student Motivation to Learn (1994) that children are born propelled by their curiosity, driven by an intense need to explore, interact with, and make sense of their environment. What causes children to lose this drive? At what point does learning become associated with drudgery and anxiety? What can teachers do to change this pivotal point in their development? According to Jere Brophy (1986), motivation to learn is a competence acquired through general experience but stimulated most directly through modeling, communication of expectations, and direct instruction or socialization by significant others, especially parents and teachers. If parents dont value education, teachers must not give up. These children still spend a majority of the day with us, so we do have the potential to make a difference. As Deborah Stipek (1998) notes, To a very large degree, students expect to learn if their teachers expect them to learn.

13My Research Review the somewhat abridged editionslide 4

Noted in several different sources was the idea that the locus of control for students can be either external or internal. If a child has an external locus of control, then he/she believes that any success is pure luck. This child doesnt connect success to effort. This creates a problem for the teacher in that he/she needs to prove to this child that he/she can succeed regardless of chance. Its their own efforts that result in success.

I attempted to tap into my colleagues knowledge regarding motivation. Unfortunately, only one person responded, my dear friend who is also going through the MAED Program. Her input was I guess that you need to make it seem like this child is not learning but is doing something of interest to themWe just had a case study about a girl whose mom owned a restaurant and the girl worked at it. She loved doing this, but hated school. Some of the suggestions that we came up with were to make the learning work-related, such as math aimed at keeping the books and making recipes. You should find ways to make your unmotivated students work relevant to his/her life. This is completely inline with what Ive read in other sources. Keeping their interests in mind and finding some way to incorporate it into the cut and dry curriculums we are mandated to teach.

14My Research Review the somewhat abridged editionslide 5

In Living the Questions A Guide for Teacher-Researchers (1999), one of the authors discusses her own experience with motivation problems in regards to reading. As a child and into her adult years she simply had no desire to read. She knew how to read, she just chose not to as a spare time activity (Im thinking of sustained silent reading that many schools push onto students with similar attitudes). On page 174 shes reflecting on when she turned 39 and a close friend gave her carefully selected books. She says, I learned that it makes a difference when you get to read things that accurately represent your realities-there are people who write, who know what you know, who maybe saw things that you saw, felt what you felt. With this kind of personal and pleasing reintroduction, reading soon grew to be a passion, a want-to, a have-to experience If we want to encourage efferent reading (thus increasing fluency) we need to give students something they WANT to read.

15My Research Review The final slide and the WHY of this research project

All of this talk about motivation is important for two big reasons. First of all, we want children to grow up with a desire to continue learning. Life is all about continued education, not necessarily formally, but why become stagnant? Secondly, when students are motivated to learn, they are actively involved in appropriate behavior (most of the time) and thus, misbehavior is diminished. Doesnt that paint such an eloquent picture? A classroom where students WANT to learn and get along

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